How many use shot timers to train?

[Olav]

What was the most noticable training benefit or improvement since incorporating a shot timer?

What drills do you use during training with the shot timer and do you keep track of your times?

[ToddG]

There are basically two ways to measure speed: with a shot timer or with a timed (disappearing) target. Without one or the other, you cannot reliably judge what is truly faster, or track your progress. What "feels" fast rarely is.

There are all sorts of ways to log your shooting results. I use a database program:

http://9x19mm.com/photoalbum/albums/userpics/normal_bentolog-drills.jpg
larger version (http://9x19mm.com/photoalbum/albums/userpics/bentolog-drills.jpg)

You can just as easily do it with a handwritten journal, Excel spreadsheet, etc.

[John_Wayne777]

What was the most noticable training benefit or improvement since incorporating a shot timer?

What drills do you use during training with the shot timer and do you keep track of your times?

Whenever possible I use a PACT-II timer....of course, I'm generally on an indoor range with a bunch of yahoos so I don't get to use it to track shot to shot stuff. Generally I use it to set a par time for drills. Beep to go, run the drill, beep to signal the end of the drill.

[gtmtnbiker98]

About 70% of the time, I'm an avid IDPA shooter.

[YVK]

Whenever possible I use a PACT-II timer....of course, I'm generally on an indoor range with a bunch of yahoos so I don't get to use it to track shot to shot stuff. Generally I use it to set a par time for drills. Beep to go, run the drill, beep to signal the end of the drill.

Same here.

[mike benedict]

you really can't measure your skill without a timer.

being that kinda guy I like to graph my time and scores over some time period just to see what works and what doesn't.


Mike

[Olav]

There are basically two ways to measure speed: with a shot timer or with a timed (disappearing) target. Without one or the other, you cannot reliably judge what is truly faster, or track your progress. What "feels" fast rarely is.

There are all sorts of ways to log your shooting results. I use a database program:

http://9x19mm.com/photoalbum/albums/userpics/normal_bentolog-drills.jpg
larger version (http://9x19mm.com/photoalbum/albums/userpics/bentolog-drills.jpg)

You can just as easily do it with a handwritten journal, Excel spreadsheet, etc.

That's a good idea.

What kind of reports do you generate with the data you collect?

Have you used this system to track/analyze progress of certain drills or is it mainly used as a journal type tool?



you really can't measure your skill without a timer.

being that kinda guy I like to graph my time and scores over some time period just to see what works and what doesn't.

Mike

Do you graph certain drills over a period of time and when you reach some par time you move on to the next drill? Do you track how long it takes to reach some level of par time per drill?


I'm going to be incorporating a shot timer into my training now that I have one installed on my iPhone thanks to Surefire.

So far it's pretty good considering it's free.

Thanks for all the ideas, I'm going be be a bit more rigorous in my training!

[mike benedict]

One of the things I was doing this Summer was comparing different sights on my S&W M&Ps

I put 10-8 sights on one slide and Warren's on another slide.
I shot the DEA dot drill plus 1 shot draws 2 shot draws and failure drills out to 20 yards. At 12-25 yards I also did a 5 round strings trying to put all rounds in the -0 as fast as I could get hits


I shot the drills over multiple days swapping between slides on the same frame to keep the trigger pull out of the equation.
I scored the targets by time and hits IDPA style. The dot drill was simply scored by time on clean runs adding 1/2 seconds for each miss on the 3" dots.
I compared the scores at each distance 5, 7, 10, 12, 15 and 20 yards.
What I found in a nut shell was for me the Warren sights were faster out to 7 yards by a a bit 2-10% depending on the day but overall faster.
from 7-12 yards the was no real difference between the sights. Statistically there was more of a difference between days than between sights.
At 12 - 15 yards the 10-8s were more accurate but no faster.
I just shot smaller groups with less shots out of the IDPA -0 zone
Past 15 yards the 10-8s were clearly more accurate as the rounded edges of the Warrens were harder to get a good sight picture with.

Mike